


Dave listens to a song and gets kind of existential

by KingAku



Series: Tunestuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Again kind of a song fic but it really isn't, Character Study, Dave has feelings for Karkat, Dave is healing, Dave is just chilling and having some thoughts, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider is Not an Asshole, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider's Bad Parenting, Growing Up, Growing up is weird, I mean he is still pretty bad, Kind of existencial, M/M, Self indulgence, The Hoosiers are so good, Therapy, Therapy dialogues based in some real stuff :tm:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24045163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingAku/pseuds/KingAku
Summary: Its early, "Rules" by The Hoosiers starts and Dave just reflects because of the song and because the older you get the more you think about stuff.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Series: Tunestuck [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731592
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Dave listens to a song and gets kind of existential

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to thank to @demonessofmusic for helping me with the beta work! I learned a lot from that and I hope I keep learning. (Spanish has really different rules for some stuff huh)  
> Anyhow I hope you all enjoy

**Dave listens to a song and gets kind of existential (ft Rules by The Hoosiers)**

_Sense never seemed to make sense to me._

_Sense never seemed to make sense to me._

_Not the sense you administer repeatedly._

Spotify did something right, Dave had to give it to the algorithm: The music recommendations were so insanely good. The first song he heard from “The Hoosiers” was “A Sadness Runs Through Him,” it was good, perfect for feeling sad and depressed, or rather, for Dave, just to let himself feel something else, to just embrace when he wasn’t ok. How funny, isn’t it? The need of a song to let yourself cry with no guilt. However, this one, this was just so perfect. Not that he wants to feel special like this super “I’m unique because I’m broken,” rather the lyrics were so moving. Fuck, what time is it? Ah, 11 pm, still early. Karkat said “Good night Strider'' some minutes ago. Dave knows sometimes Karkat just is done for the day, or wants time alone, or even he tries to sleep but something wakes him up and he isn’t actually sleeping. He isn’t upset about this, he isn’t an insecure jealous piece of garbage, he gets it, they don’t have to talk all day at every hour, so when it happens it’s amazing, when he gets to chat a bit, he feels things are better. So, what now? Oh yeah, the song.

_I fled to the hills so I could clear my mind._

_I couldn't swallow the pills that I was prescribed._

It’s funny, he can associate something to this, probably is too simple, too direct, but it works. He remembers a summer-art camp Bro sent him to. Dave had this meltdown and he just couldn’t endure shit anymore. Bro, surprisingly, paid everything without saying a word or being shitty, he just gave Dave this, and also paid some therapy, and the therapy had meds included. The anxiety and depression got better, art camp was cool, a rest from the world. God, he enjoyed photography and painting so much. He didn’t have to hide, he didn’t have to pretend, he could just be himself, he was actually very silent, he didn’t do as many jokes, he felt so different, he found there was an “I”, that was very different from “Regular Dave,” “Dave online,” and “Dave with friends”. All Daves are him, he understood this in therapy, but the struggle was due the feeling that they were fake. “We all put masks on, we all adapt to situations, that doesn’t mean those ‘you’ are fake, it means there is a lot about you, that you can adapt and that you do what you can, but it's also important to embrace what masks just don’t feel right, and what masks feel more true to you”, that’s what the therapist said. It made sense. It took some more identity crisis to adjust, to define new Daves and what it meant for him to be him. “You are not weird, Dave”, said the therapist “You’re in the age where things change, and some people built all this persona because of their circumstances at the moment but now they just don’t feel it's right, the sense of not feeling oneself isn’t alright brings a lot of issues when you fight it, it’s a process, and it's okay to experience it. Let it happen, Dave. It’s okay to redefine yourself, and it's ok if that ‘new you’ isn’t at all like how you used to be because in the end you will always be you.” 

After some months of therapy Dave didn’t need as much meds as before. He now had some anxiolytics, but they weren’t as much or as heavy as before. 

_People didn't always like each other Did they?_

_People didn’t always get along._

Oh, that one… reminds him so much about him and Karkat. At least Dave can say he didn’t always liked Karkat, sometimes he thought he was too much, too loud, too angry—the more he got to know him, the more he understood that in fact he was too much, too loud and too angry but also too kind, too soft, too funny, too amazing. Dave had gone through a lot, and after he met Karkat he went through even more shit, they both did. Life never stops, your drama doesn’t stop after you conquer high school and there aren’t musicals or time outs. You just get a level up, your problems change in nature, but to be honest, life is just trouble in many colors and forms with some happiness in between. He didn’t want to get too spiritual, that was a can of worms he wasn’t ready for, but had to agree with those annoying philosophers that perhaps life is meaningless, don’t make sense at all, we all give too much importance to everything, and living the present is the most wise shit one can do as a mortal human. Dave tried to live in the present as much as possible, even if he couldn’t resist sometimes revisiting the past, even if there was no use doing it so. 

_I read the news but it wasn't good,_

_Because the bad guys won when the good guys should._

_Was it I told you that the world's not flat,_

_Tell the beautiful source can it be taken as fact._

Now that he was 22, he couldn’t believe all the shit that had changed about him, about his views of the world (of course a lot of those changes happened thanks to therapy). Things weren’t as black and white as before, and he could now see things in a different light. Bro wasn’t this idolized figure anymore.

“Idealizing someone means seeing them pure white or pure black, people often don’t know that idealizing someone doesn’t only mean thinking the best of them, it also means being incapable of seeing the whole picture of a person, to just see one aspect of them. What do you think about it, Dave?”

Dave replied to the therapist “I have done that in both extremes with Bro, honestly I thought he was the best ever to not see the bad shit I had to live thanks to him, but then I got stuck seeing him as this monster, and that made me feel so weird when he did something nice. I don’t think he is a good person, or a good brother, but he hasn’t kicked me out, and sometimes I know when he means well, he isn’t doing things to hurt me all the time. I don’t think he is aware of the shit he does, his ego is too much, for both of us. I just wish he was different, that he told me he was proud and that he loves me”.

“He is the way he is, and he won’t change, you said that last week, remember? What do you think now?” 

“Same thing, I think I have been hurting myself by waiting for him to change, to understand what I ask from him. I guess his way of saying ‘I’m sorry for the shit I did’ is this, the therapy. Like, an effort to repair the harm he can’t undo because he doesn't really know how… I guess, the next step for me is leave that house, focus on my career and move on.”

The therapist gave a soft nod, Dave knew the therapist wasn’t a person that gave the answers but rather someone to discuss what you can do for you, the work in the end is his to do. Though it was helpful when the therapist helped point out the irrational thoughts that were holding him back. A couple of weeks more and officially he would be achieving the ‘A year of therapy and work’, it felt nice to know he had made a lot of improvement. The therapist always told him that he could take his time, to not feel pressure to just be healed, therapy wasn’t magic and the harm of 21 years may get tricky, come and go, relapse, and need more time than just a couple of sessions. He appreciated that. Not feeling rushed about time.

“Sadly, our session time is over, but we can continue this next week, what do you think?”

“Yeah, thanks doc”.

“The doc says we have more control over shit (ok she doesn’t call it shit but whatever) than we imagine, and that’s cool, maybe we don’t get to play by our own rules all the time, maybe we are tied to a series of casualties, maybe we can’t see all the variables but we can in fact decide what to do when shit is going down, when the waves of trouble strike”, he closed his eyes. He loved the voices, the instruments playing, the song wasn’t sad, it felt nostalgic but full of life, it was a weird feeling to describe. It started kind of calm and steady but then it was a full party.

_People always looking for something they can't find._

_One man’s fact's another’s trick of the mind._

_People always looking for something they can't find._

_One man’s fact's another’s trick of the mind._

He felt these lines could fit both Karkat and him. He felt they both were searching for things they can’t just find, more like they have to keep working hard so maybe one day they both find something they need rather than this imaginary shit they were searching for. The meaning of their lives, the motivation to keep fighting and doing shit even if it was painful. They can’t find that, especially not in someone else. It was really curious how their minds were shaping all the time, how believing so many bullshit societies, movies and such said could make such struggles in the cognitive processes. A lot of things Dave was haunted by were nothing but other people bias shitty ideas of “The Right and Wrong”.

_People didn't always like each other, did they?_

_People didn't always get along though did they?_

_Ooo you know you'd never get to find out anyway._

_The game plays us for rules._

_You know you'd never get to have the final say._

_You'd get to make the rules._

_You know you'd never get to find out anyway._

_The game plays us for rules._

_You're never gonna get to have the final say._

_You get to make the rules._

_Rules._

The lyrics of the song say a thing, the tone of the song says another and Dave himself finds himself lost in the reflexive train. It feels good though. He is certain a 13-year-old Dave would have loved this song for different reasons, he would just focus on the powerless feeling, accepting he wouldn’t ever have a chance, choice or say in his life or the world. Present Dave feels like maybe he can’t control everything but he has control over himself, so even if the game won’t let him twist the shitty rules, he can survive anything, he can adapt, he can move differently. He isn’t alone to do so. There are so many rules to live with, and some might need to be broke so he can live in peace, so he can be free. Wouldn't it be nice to do that with someone special? Damn he wants to show this song to Karkat. Karkat is smart as hell, he has the revolutionary mind type, he always is questioning all the shit that can be questioned, even himself. That is great about him. He never settles, even if he can be comfortable lying to himself you have seen how he just throws that shit aside admitting that if he in fact thought what he said, that would be a lie, that wouldn’t be him. Karkat loves the truth, loves to find answers, to ask why. Dave is more of a “Ok sure” kind of guy, but since his questioning about things have started, he can’t help it but to… question things with him. Redefining his world and what “the rules” actually mean is something he now likes to do. 

_One man falls another takes his place._

_He chases the win until the end of his days._

_One man falls another takes his place._

_He chases the win until the end of his days._

_One man falls another takes his place._

_One man falls another takes his place._

_One man falls another takes._

Humanity has done this since long ago. One man falls and another takes his place, just like someone thinks, questions and finds answers just so another one comes and does the same. Human knowledge is weird. But even if it is in fact dumb, even if others have done it before, he is alive, he has his change to do it in his own way and find his own answers, at his own pace. Even if things look alike, even if questions repeat, his existence is unique somehow, because there wasn’t Greek Dave, or Roman Karkat, they are they, they exist now, in this particular time, and that makes all worth it, to just get to live and enjoy while it lasts.

He needs to show this to Karkat.

He needs to tell Karkat.

He wants to make the rules together, he wants to define his future, and he wants to be with him to answer and give sense to everything that has no sense. Their relationship makes sense, wouldn’t it be nice to just give it a name? 

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this feels therapeutic. This times are really stressing. I hope you all enjoyed and please stay safe and don't forget to keep track and take care of your mental health.


End file.
